Subject: October 11th meeting Comment: I must express my disappointment on the discussion of a consumption based tax model at the October 11th meeting. I was perplexed by your decision not to purse this reform path. Although not an economist or public policy expert, I have spend the past six months studying the various reform options. I found the discussion at this meeting superfluous and at times inaccurate. The seeming direction of the panel is not what I or most Americans would call "reform". Minor tweaks to deductions/credits will not help America retain a global lead. Specific to your discussion, Mr. Lazear introduced the consumption based tax as the simplest tax system in it's purist form. Why then was pursuing this direction rejected by the panel for among other reasons being too 'complex'? Even to the untrained political layman, there must be some very strong special interest groups pressuring this panel to not take a sensible and bold path. I look forward to reading your final report on November 1st. At minimum, I would expect the report to contain a simple evaluation matrix of the reform paths against objective criteria clearly identifying why a particular path was chosen over another. Any manipulation or errors in this scoring matrix will be clearly seen by all. Regards, Brad Wilson Nashville, TN |